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By way of some very brief background I attended Birkenhead High School, leaving in 2000 and commencing a law degree at the University of Nottingham that September. After my graduation in June 2003, I began work for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, under an ACA training contract, in Manchester (September 2003). One year into my training contract, I moved over to PwC's Leeds office and have been here ever since. I completed my training contract in September 2006 and am now fully ACA qualified.
Accountancy is a very varied profession. I think the primary distinction to initially consider is whether you are interested in being an accountant in industry (i.e. performing the accounting function for a company/business or group of companies) or in practice (i.e. providing advice to companies/businesses or group of companies). An accountant in industry will normally study for the CIMA, CIPFA or ACCA qualifications, whilst an accountant in industry will usually study for the ACA. From my experience of training within practice, I would suggest that this is the most appropriate way to begin a career in accountancy - you will inevitably be given more support and structure whilst studying for your professional exams however first and foremost the ACA qualification is widely acknowledged as the most respected and transferable qualification in the financial sector.
I have attached below a link to the ICAEW website (ACA qualification), ACCA, CIMA and CIPFA websites. If you browse through these, you should be able to compare the qualifications in terms of the material studied and exam/work-based learning structure.
Assuming that practice is the route which you would like to take, then the next consideration will be whether you would prefer to train within a small firm (few partners, few offices - usually based around a local centre, and a general accounting specialism, so providing general accounting advice to local businesses) or a larger professional services firm such as PwC (i.e. national/international presence, many partners and a wide breadth of specialisms). Again, I would recommend applying to one of the larger professional services firm, primarily for the structure and support (both financial and academic) which you will receive throughout your training contract.
As noted above, should you train through practice, and through a professional services form, you will be most likely to study for the ACA qualification. The ACA qualification is awarded by the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales) and usually takes 3 years to obtain. You will sit a number of exams, split between the professional stage (exams in accounting, audit, tax, financial reporting, business finance and business management), two law and ethics papers and the advanced stage (a more advisory-based set of exams, requiring you to advise 'clients' on realistic scenarios involving both a mix of the subjects studied and professional stage and further advanced material) and will need to complete a set number of days of work-based training (i.e. the days which you would spend working as normal on your own portfolio of clients in the office). I should note at this point that a larger firm such as PwC releases you from the office for blocks of a set number of weeks during which you will attend college (usually the Financial Training Company - link below - this will also give you further information on the different accountancy qualifications and exam structures) to study and sit your exams. You will work in the office between blocks of study. Usually, the firm will automatically keep you on once your training contract ends. However, your training contract will have been dependent on you passing exams at either the first or second attempt. It is worth bearing in mind that, in terms of the ACA exams, and economics degree could potentially exempt you from the business management exam, although this will depend upon the modules which you have studied during your degree.
To apply for a training contract at a professional services firm such as PwC, you will usually need a 2.1 degree (in any discipline) together with a generally high level of academic achievement previously. You do not need to have studied maths beyond GCSE, although it is regarded as a benefit - given that you are studying for an economics degree, I assume that you will have sat maths at A-Level. I would recommend applying to such firms as early as you can - now is not too late. Generally, the initial stages of the application process will involve filling in an on-line application form before being invited for a first interview and then, if successful a second interview and assessment day (usually comprising numerical/diagrammatical reasoning tests, a group or individual presentation exercise and a second interview with a partner). I should note however that the structure of the application process for other firms may be slightly different.
The most important point to consider when filling in your initial application form will be the 'line of service' which you wish to apply to. In most larger firms there will broadly be a choice of audit or tax (usually corporate tax if you are aiming to study for the ACA qualification). You should look into each of these lines of service in order to decide which one is of most interest to you. However, please do not think that the one you train within is where you will have to stay. Many people move between departments both during and after the completion of the training contract.
I joined the corporate tax department on starting work with PwC and have worked in this department throughout my training contract and since. To give you some background information on corporate tax, we deal with corporates only (both small limited, family-run businesses and large plcs) and assist with both on the tax disclosures which are included within their filed accounts as well as the completion of and filing of tax returns at HM Revenue & Customs. In addition to this, we will advise our clients on the tax impact of various corporate transactions, such as acquisitions and disposals, and will suggest the most appropriate way of structuring such a transaction in terms of mitigating the tax impact. Such advice can take place in the context of UK only transactions (i.e. a UK company acquiring another UK company) or in an international context (i.e. a UK company acquiring a foreign company or vice versa). In the corporate tax department you would work on a number of clients and projects each day, and would spend the majority of your time in the office. You main client contacts would usually be those at a more senior level such as FD. I have little experience of audit, but the main differences to tax are that you would very rarely be in the office. You would spend a certain number of weeks at a time at a specific client, auditing the information which is to be included in that client's accounts. After one audit is finished, you would be booked to another audit and so the pattern would continue. Whilst the range of areas which would need auditing are different, the basic structure of an audit would be the same for all areas of information. As such, I don't think that you would see such a variety of work as early on as you could expect to in tax. Finally, as a junior member of an audit team, you would usually have contact with the less senior people at the client (e.g. the Management Accountant as opposed to the FD).
For information, I have also included a link to PwC's graduate recruitment website below. In the interests of not being biased, I would suggest you might also like to look at the graduate recruitment websites for Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, BDO Stoy Hayward, Grant Thornton and Baker Tilly. Obviously, the firm most suited to you will depend on your personal preferences and, to some extent, the location in which you would like to study.
Good luck with any application that you choose to make - be it in the accountancy industry or elsewhere.
Kind regards
Helen
Birkenhead High School
Class of 2000.
Useful links:
http://www.pwc.com/uk/eng/car-inexp/graduate/home.html
http://www.ftckaplan.com/
http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm?route=1385
http://www.cipfa.org.uk/
http://uk.accaglobal.com/
http://www.cimaglobal.com/cps/rde/xchg/live/root.xsl/index.htm
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